METAPHOR AND REALITY

This exhaustive analysis of the current discussion on metaphor recognises the ever increasing cognitive significance of metaphor in the analysis of the relations between language and reality. and of its creative role in methodology. It is conceived as the significance of the tension between words. sentences and primarily the context in which given sentences function. The analysis considers two main questions: whether metaphor creates a closed world of the imagination or whether it contributes to revealing new aspects of the given world; and whether the hidden roots of our metaphorical way of thinking and speaking do not reveal a certain much more fundamental dimension of reality. The provisional conclusion that metaphor does not lie primarily in the field of language, but in reality itself, is the first step to an ontological analysis of metaphor. Its ontological function refers back to the fullest reality in which new aspects can be uncovered, as well as to a dimension that is more than cognitive and which simultaneously reveals the plurality of cultural contexts.